Dementia

            Early Saturday morning I had trouble sleeping because my hip was bothering me. I should probably stop saying “my hip” because I don’t think that’s the problem. Having looked up the symptoms I’m pretty sure that I have an overworked gluteus maximus, also known as wallet syndrome, resulting from riding my bike too far before those muscles had been conditioned up to going that distance. I rode up to Birchmount and almost Eglinton a couple of weeks ago and it was clearly too much. I tried to ease back on my riding but I didn’t do it enough and so it kept straining the muscles. When I got up at 5:00 my glutes on the right didn’t feel as bad as the day before.

            I finished memorizing and started learning the chords to a 45-second song by Serge Gainsbourg from 1972 that I recently translated, which at first I’d thought was a parody of a commercial. But it turns out that this was a real jingle that he’d done for the Caron perfume company for their eau de toilette for men called “Pour un Homme de Caron”. The song translates as: “

I pass for a man / not a very handsome one / but still for a man / full of seduction // What gives me my charm / and renders me armed / is my secret: Pour un Homme de Caron // There are for a man / a few tricks of fashion / that can carry a woman / into passion // What gives me my charm / and renders me armed / is my secret: Pour un Homme de Caron // Pour un Homme de Caron: A touch of cologne and a whole lot of charm”.

            The weather forecast had been calling for rain on Saturday all week but for the first couple of hours it was dry outside and so I thought I might have caught a break for later when I went to the food bank line up. But it started raining about an hour before it was time to go. I considered skipping it and keeping dry at home but finally decided that it would save me some money to go.

            There were more people in line than I expected for such a rainy day but then it was the last Saturday before the social assistance cheques would be issued so the cupboards would be barer now than next weekend.

            Graham was a few places ahead of me and chatting with a young man behind him whom I hadn’t seen before. Behind them was a big woman with a big black umbrella and behind her was the mumbling old man that’s been there the last few times. I was behind him but I stepped back to leave a space for the tenants in 1501 Queen West to get out, but also to avoid him shooting snot rockets onto the sidewalk at his feet and the fact that he was smoking. It seems to me that people in the line-up smoke more on rainy days but I would have to do a study to say for sure. The cigarette cupboards certainly don’t seem to be bare at the end of the month. There were people behind and in front of me smoking all up and down the line and so it was very difficult to avoid.

            I’d brought my book to read but couldn’t take it out in the rain and so I paced a bit until I came over to chat with Graham and his companion.

            Graham was talking about the people that mark their places with shopping carts and then go for breakfast. I said it would be funny to get hold of a mannequin and to use it to mark one’s place. One could dress them up and it would be especially hilarious if there were a whole line of them. The other guy said that one could use crash test dummies and then started talking about a Crash Test Dummies cartoon series. Looking it up I see that there was no Crash Test Dummies half hour cartoon show. There was one half hour special in 1993 featuring The Incredible Crash Test Dummies and after that a series of animated shorts were produced.

            Graham said he’d heard of the show but he’d never watched television with his kids or his wife. I asked, “What about when you were a kid?” but he said they hadn’t had a television when he was growing up because he was brought up in England. He must have come here when he was small because he has no British accent whatsoever. He said one needed a licence to have a television in England, although the licence for black and white TVs was cheaper. The other guy said he knew about this because his parents are from England. I was shocked to hear that such a license ever existed, let alone that it still exists. It’s basically a television tax that pays for 75% of the operation of the BBC. Right now it costs 154.50 pounds ($263. 96) per year. It’s half price for the legally blind and free for those 75 and older.

            I’d read that they still had outdoor toilets up until the 1960s on older urban properties in England. Graham confirmed that his family had to use a community washroom where they lived in a town outside of Yorkshire. He said there had also been a community telephone. I told them that where I grew up in New Brunswick we had a party line with our ring being one long and one short. But when I lived at St Clarens and St Clair in 1988 we shared a line with an old Italian lady who used to cut in when I was on the phone and ask, “You finish?”

            Graham said that he’s set up his laptop in his room as a security camera that’s triggered by his door being opened. He’s captured on video his landlord coming into his room twice. His landlord denied it but Graham showed him the proof and warned him not to do it again.

            I asked if people are still stealing his stuff. He said they are but that he’s got a bar fridge in his room now so he only has to use the community fridge for the freezer and he’s thinking of wrapping everything in tape to discourage thieves.

            Graham pays $600 for a room with a shared kitchen. The other guy said he has a two-bedroom basement apartment for $600 on St Clarens.

            Graham was living in a shelter before he got his room and he said the shelter system finds people rooms but there are no compromises. Whatever place they find for you, even if it’s a crack house like his building, you have to either take it or live on the street.

            The line started moving about fifteen minutes early. Martina went down the line and told any smokers to step out of line and smoke at the outer edge of the sidewalk. This seems to be a new policy and it’s nice but it’s too bad it’s only enforced after the food bank opens and not during most of the time people are standing in line and smoking. I wonder if my complaints have had anything to do with this rule and if anyone involved with the food bank have read any of my Food Bank Adventures. It’s possible that it’s just that the tenants in 1501 Queen have complained about the smoke coming into their apartment windows while people are smoking right up next to the building.

            I looked behind me and saw the old man standing three places back. I reminded him that he was ahead of me. He said, “I don’t know!” and came forward.

            When I was third in line the woman at the front stepped forward to stand out of the rain and shake out her umbrella. The old man shuffled forward in tiny steps as he swayed his body uncertainly from side to side. The woman stepped inside and he followed her. Suddenly Chico, the guy in the wheelchair who just sits chain smoking by the entrance and pushed the button to open the door for people, yelled at him that he wasn’t supposed to go in. Another guy, who always seems drunk, and who also just hangs around there smoking, I guess while he’s waiting for PARC to open, yelled at the old man to get back in line and told him he was lucky he didn’t punch him out. Meanwhile the big woman who’d already gone inside didn’t get yelled at.

            Downstairs, as five of us were lined up to show our cards to Valdene at the desk she said to the old man that he’d already been there yesterday and so he couldn’t get any food. He stood there swaying from side to side, looking confused as I stepped around him to get processed.

            My volunteer was a young man I hadn’t seen there before.

            I took a bag of Terra “exotic” vegetable chips. But I’ve heard that exoticism is wrong, so if I’m attracted to the chips because they are exotic then I’m ethically at fault. I was allowed four chewy fruit and nut granola bars and he offered me a box of Cheerios but Cheerios are too light and sometimes they just float away even when you pour air on them.

            I was just selecting a can of chickpeas and another of fava beans when Valdene yelled. I turned and saw her storming towards the old man because she’d noticed that he’d put some of the food near the exit in his bag. She ordered him to leave it as she came for the bag. He called out, “My bag!” and finally she picked it up and tossed it down on the shelf beside him and shouted, “Take it! And don’t come back this week!” I think he left without his bag. I said to Valdene, “He’s confused”. She barked back, “He’s not confused!” I assured her that I’ve talked with him and I know he’s confused but she insisted, “He was smart enough to come here yesterday and to try to take our food today!” I said, “It doesn’t take brains to go to the food bank!” What could have happened that made the old man come twice in one week was that he might very possibly have forgotten that he’d even been there on Friday. He could have gotten his groceries on that day, put them down and then forgot them when he walked away. But no elderly man with dementia is going to pull the wool over Valdene’s eyes. If I were a volunteer at this food bank I would clash with her like crazy.

            I got a small bottle of Simply Lemonade and four fruit punch drinking boxes. My final selection from the shelves was a package of kalamansi flavoured Pancit Canton instant noodles. Kalamansi is a type of lime from the Philippines and Pancit Canton is a Filipino noodle dish.

            At Angie’s section I took the pack of eight single servings of Activia yogourt but later saw that they contain stivia, which gives me a headache. Maybe I’ll be able to give them to a homeless person later.

            I was out of eggs and so I took the three she offered, but to avoid breaking them I slipped them into my right jacket pocket. Of course later on one of them got broken because I forgot that they were there, but I managed to save it anyway by pouring it from the bag into a frying pan to cook and have on a sandwich for lunch.

            Since I didn’t want milk Angie gave me a carton of orange-tangerine juice. She also gave me a pack or frozen ground pork.

            The bread section had a lot of pita this time but I decided not to take any.

            Sylvia’s carrots and potatoes didn’t look in great shape but I took two bunches of broccoli. She still had bags of five vine tomatoes and offered me two bags but I didn’t think I could go through ten tomatoes in a week. Yes, I know I could have taken the extra five and made sauce, but that’s only something I might have done when I was raising my daughter.

            From the “take as much as you want” section near the door I grabbed a cantaloupe, a zucchini and a bunch of very ripe bananas. I was trying to find a bunch that was not so ripe but Sylvia, with slight impatience, told me that they were all the same. Yes, I know I could make banana bread with overripe bananas but I wasn’t going to do that either without someone else to bake for.

            It was pouring when I left the food bank and I was pretty much soaked from the three-minute ride home. I wanted to go out to the supermarket but thought I’d wait until the shower subsided, which was about half an hour later.

            At No Frills I bought grapes, a bag of three mangoes, a larger, unlabeled and an un-bar-coded pack of strawberries among the smaller ones for $2. The cashier listed it as “other” on the bill. I also splurged on a bag of cherries. I got detergent, mouthwash and shaving gel and then from the other side of the store I grabbed yogourt and hot salsa.

            I had an egg, cheese, tomato and lettuce sandwich between two halves of a single slice of toast for lunch.

            It rained off and on all day and quite heavily with thunder in the evening.

            I worked on my journal.

            I made two lean ground beef burgers and had one for dinner with lettuce and tomato and a beer while watching “The Madness of King George”. The movie was well made and well acted, especially by Helen Mirren, but I found the story disappointing. I thought it was going to deal with the conflict with King George III on which the whole English Romantic period was based. It also only covers one six-month period of madness from which he recovered in time to keep control of the throne from which George the Prince of Wales, his son had been plotting to wrest him. A few years later the king did go permanently insane.